I HAVE THIS illness I keep hoping I'll be able to shake. It's an allergic reaction to Martin Lawrence. In the presence of his image my skin crawls. I don't know what allergen he is releasing but if it affected the general public with half the virulence it attacks me, the man would not have a career.

But he keeps getting work, so I guess someone out there might actually want to go see him in "Nothing to Lose." He plays a hoodlum who refers to himself as T, and is an out-of-work electrical whiz. He makes the mistake of trying to rob Nick Beam (Tim Robbins), a Los Angeles advertising executive who is in a really bad mood.

Nick has just discovered that his wife (Kelly Preston), who he adores, is cheating on him. The news has caused him to lose his senses, particularly the one that keeps people from getting themselves killed in dangerous situations. So when T jumps in Nick's car, waves a gun and demands his money, Nick floors the gas pedal and doesn't stop until Arizona.

Written and directed by Steve Oedekerk ( "Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls" ), this is a story in which mistaken identity rules the plot. This is also a buddy movie, so naturally our heros have to hate each other at the start. Just imagine: What could be more alluring than being stuck with the two of them in a car driving through the desert?

They run out of gas and money and (it's complicated) credit cards so they knock over a convenience store. Now the police are looking for an armed duo - one white guy and one black guy - and it just so happens that another, really dangerous pair (John C. McGinley and Giancarlo Esposito) who also fit the description are prowling that section of highway. They run into each other and this causes more unfunny complications.

By the time Nick and T return to L.A., Nick has formulated a plan to rob his boss, the suspected debaucher of his wife, as retribution. T is in on the heist, during which he shows off his techno-knowledge.

Apart from Lawrence's numbing tendency to yell all his lines and his penchant for playing arrogant dopes, what's also disturbing about the film is the way the black family is portrayed here. The minute T comes home, late at night with Nick along, his wife starts a constant barrage of put downs.

And what happened to the street hood who calls himself T? To his wife, he is the considerably less macho Terence and to his mother, who lives with them and their two kids, he is obviously not even an adult. She doesn't say hello without slapping him across the face. And when Nick says hello, she slaps him, too.

The audience roared at this. I can't think which part they liked better - that black men are treated like children by their women or that a swaggering liar is finally getting comeuppance, from someone, anyone, even if the humiliation leads him to go out and hold someone else up.

There is a grand total of two funny moments in this

"comedy." In one, Nick's shoes ignite and when he walks into a store afterward, the proprietor notices the smoke and remarks, "You must really be fast." In the other, Nick and T are trying to rob an older fellow behind the counter or a hardware store. The man earnestly assesses which of his two assailants is scarier. Nick and T stop to discuss the different approaches, which suddenly abruptly takes the movie outside the realm of Oedekerk's straightforward comedy and attempts to place it in the area of a much more Woody Allenish farce or satire. In any case, it is not the sign of a successful comedy when the only funny segments belong to bit players.

At first, I was upset that the audience was talking through most of "Nothing to Lose," but then I realized what they instinctually seemed to know - that this is a movie made to be talked through.